My main use case for Amazon Linux is to run my production environment in a robust, scalable operating system. I have a SaaS platform where we run all our servers in Amazon, and we use Amazon Linux as the operating system that serves all our servers to our customers.
Robust cloud platform has delivered secure, high‑performance workloads with lower operating costs
What is our primary use case?
What is most valuable?
Being a SaaS platform, we need to ensure the security of the platform that we are running, and Amazon Linux provides the latest and greatest patches with all the packages included, making it easier for us to manage. The best features Amazon Linux offers include a very good package management system where we can quickly install everything, and the packages are compatible and very performant with Graviton processors. Graviton is even cheaper, but we do not have much expertise on running things on Arm processors, so we rely on the operating system, which abstracts us from the Arm processor to the application. Amazon Linux helps us do that, and the performance is so high on these servers. They are fine-tuned in such a way that it can use the best out of the hardware. Amazon Linux has positively impacted our organization. We were running on normal servers which were expensive, and we moved to Graviton servers. If we had used any other operating system, there might have been many packaging issues with the modules that we are using, the classes, the objects, and other components. Amazon Linux comes with all the packages required to run on Graviton, which helped us reduce our cost. We were able to achieve almost 30% more improvement in performance on the servers and almost 10% reduction in cost.
What needs improvement?
Amazon Linux is currently available mostly in Amazon, but I would like to see it available outside as well. Amazon last provided some security patches that were not very fast, which was one reason I did not rate it higher, along with a few things, such as some particular versions of Python that are not readily available in Amazon Linux.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Amazon Linux for almost four years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
We have Amazon Linux servers which we have not restarted for almost three years, and the operating system is very robust. Once we received a security patch from Amazon through proactive updates, and we had to update it. Amazon Linux is stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Amazon Linux is highly scalable.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Previously, we were using CentOS, and we switched to Amazon Linux for better reliability and continuous support, as Amazon Linux was also a Fedora flavor.
What was our ROI?
I have seen a return on investment. As I mentioned earlier, we were able to increase the performance by at least 10 to 20% and also reduce the cost by up to 10%.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Amazon Linux is that it was decent, and in fact, it was good.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Before choosing Amazon Linux, I evaluated CentOS as an option.
What other advice do I have?
My advice to others looking into using Amazon Linux is that if you are moving to Graviton servers, Amazon Linux would be the best option, as you will get almost all the packages right away in Amazon Linux. I give this review a rating of 10.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Optimized cloud workloads have improved security and cost efficiency while needing better cross-platform support
What is our primary use case?
We primarily use Amazon Linux for the deployment of Amazon machine instances. We also use it for loading up our packages for building Docker images inside it and for many different cases where we usually utilize it.
Recently, we used Amazon Linux to host running web servers using Apache and Nginx, and we were also working on a project for deploying some backend services like Node.js, Python, and Ruby. We hosted some APIs and microservices on these instances. We are using it as the default common operating system for the Amazon EC2 instances, and it helps us in many different ways, especially since our EKS cluster is a self-provisioned cluster, as we are using Amazon Linux instances as the provisioned instances.
How has it helped my organization?
The positive impact of Amazon Linux on my organization is significant, as it has improved organizational security by closing known vulnerabilities quickly, reducing the risk of hacking and malware, resulting in fewer security incidents and lower breach risk. Financially, Amazon Linux is cost-effective and prevents costly data breaches and downtimes, saving considerable money and protecting the company's revenue. It also simplifies compliance and audits such as HIPAA, making it easy for us to get audit approvals while ensuring the organization stays legally compliant and increases system stability by fixing bugs and kernel issues.
What is most valuable?
The best features that Amazon Linux offers, based on my day-to-day activities, are that it is optimized for AWS. It is tuned for EC2 instances, has fast boot times, and works seamlessly with AWS services including EC2, EBS, S3, and IAM. It is also free with no licensing cost, does not require a subscription, and is included in AWS usage, making it cost-effective. Amazon Linux 2 offers five years of support, includes a lot of security patches, and has secure defaults. I find it valuable that even the kernel is optimized for efficient memory and CPU management.
In my day-to-day work, the features of Amazon Linux help significantly, especially with system stability and performance. Additionally, the pre-built AMI images in Amazon Linux are easy to create, and creating custom AMIs is straightforward. It is also developer-friendly and cloud DevOps-friendly. The package management is stable, using YUM and AWS-maintained repositories. Security features assist us as a company since security teams detect vulnerabilities, and security issues reported show common vulnerability exposures, providing reports almost through using Trivy while utilizing the EC2 instance. AWS can analyze those vulnerabilities, implement fixes, and test to ensure the systems remain stable.
What needs improvement?
Speaking of challenges I faced with Amazon Linux, some other use cases I used it for include building containers that I take and store in my Amazon ECR, and the main challenge I usually faced was vendor lock-in, as the design is mainly for AWS. It has limited optimization and support outside AWS, and for us to migrate loads to another cloud, it requires many changes. The community support is also limited because it is smaller compared to Ubuntu or Debian, and there are fewer third-party tutorials and troubleshooting guides for Amazon Linux, so we must heavily rely on AWS documentation. It is still a great tool but has a learning curve and cannot really be compared to other Linux distributions.
Although I am a DevOps engineer and do not have specific metrics readily available, I am aware that patch deployment time is notably efficient, as critical patches are usually applied within less than 48 hours from release. For unpatched common vulnerability exposures, the instances of these were near zero for high or critical CVEs. This assures efficiency and reveals that we did not experience many security incidents due to unpatched systems, although I do not have specific figures for that.
Personally, from my own experience with Amazon Linux, I can suggest improving the patch compliance rate by automating patching using the systems manager patch, scheduling automatic patch windows, and enforcing patch baselines to achieve higher compliance and fewer missed systems. Standardizing operating system images by using golden AMIs with the latest images could also help, as new systems are built by default while removing unused software would be beneficial.
Further improvements needed for Amazon Linux include ensuring compatibility beyond AWS, which would be very useful, as well as enhancing GUI support since it is primarily focused on server workloads. A better graphical user interface based on admin tools would be great, and providing more frequent runtime updates for languages such as Python, Node.js, and Java, which currently lag behind in their latest releases, would also be beneficial. Additionally, improving monitoring and reporting features while integrating patch and security dashboards would be useful.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Amazon Linux for a year now.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Amazon Linux is really stable. As I highlighted, it has higher reliability and fewer crashes and issues, as well as a better security posture with less risk of security breaches.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Amazon Linux handles scalability well for my needs. Especially when integrated with autoscaling groups on ECS and EKS, it scales effectively, with minimal problems from my experience. Even the cooling down process after scaling out or scaling down does not cause many headaches, and you only pay for what you use, which makes it great.
How are customer service and support?
For customer support, we are on a support plan maintained by AWS. The team I am working with mainly uses the developer plan, while those in production often use the enterprise plan for dedicated support and architectural help. The support primarily covers installation issues, operating system problems, and networking, and while they provide helpful resources such as GitHub links and blogs for general issues, we often conduct our own research, as our company has experts working with Linux in the infrastructure.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Negative
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I have been using Amazon Linux ever since I joined the company; therefore, I have not used a different solution.
What other advice do I have?
Amazon Linux is best suited for EC2 workloads, ECS, EKS containers, and AWS-native applications. You can use it for production workloads because it is stable and secure, and without license fees, you can expect lower costs compared to Red Hat Linux and Windows, providing a great return on investment for cloud-native workloads. If your application requires very new software versions, you may need additional repositories or manual installations, such as Docker containers using custom images. The ability to patch regularly, apply patches on time, and utilize the patch manager is a key advantage. Amazon Linux offers many use cases and is recommended for microservices, making it great for security purposes by using IAM roles and security groups properly while integrating with CloudWatch for monitoring.
Compared to Ubuntu and other Linux distributions, Amazon Linux has worse support, which often leads us to rely heavily on documentation. Additionally, there are fewer third-party tutorials available for Amazon Linux. Furthermore, it still needs improved package availability, as some newer software versions are missing. Amazon Linux has smaller repositories than Ubuntu, so providing more up-to-date packages and expanding official repositories would help. Easier version upgrades and stronger multi-cloud support beyond AWS, reducing vendor lock-in, would enhance its overall effectiveness.
We usually purchase Amazon Linux through the AWS Marketplace.
Since I joined the company, they have been using Amazon Linux, and I would not know what specific options were previously evaluated. However, Amazon Linux was chosen for its faster deployment times, which means less configuration time for the operating systems and quicker time to market. It has lower maintenance costs, requires less admin workload, offers automated patching, and is highly reliable with fewer crashes and issues.
I rate Amazon Linux at seven out of ten on an overall scale.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Using cloud-native images has streamlined cluster management but has needed newer package versions
What is our primary use case?
My main use case for Amazon Linux is as a base for my EC2 instances, but recently I have been using it almost exclusively as EKS node stock images.
A specific example of how I am using Amazon Linux in one of my projects is that it hosts our Kubernetes nodes that connect to AWS EKS services.
What is most valuable?
The best feature Amazon Linux offers, in my opinion, is the compatibility with AWS cloud and AWS services.
When I mention compatibility with AWS cloud and services, I appreciate how it is connected to AWS System Manager and how it automates registration to EKS.
Amazon Linux has impacted my organization positively by simplifying the workflow where we manage our EKS nodes. It simplifies our workflow because it reduces time; we always know that Amazon Linux AMIs are updated with all security patches and compatible with EKS, so we are able to rely on them.
What needs improvement?
I am not sure how Amazon Linux can be improved, as we are fully satisfied with it, but sometimes we cannot find some modern application packages. I cannot provide examples right now, but I think previously I tried to install a PostgreSQL server into it and I was unable to find the latest version available from the package registry, so I had to compile it myself.
For how long have I used the solution?
I do not remember exactly how long I have been using Amazon Linux, but probably starting in 2018.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Amazon Linux is stable in my experience; there were no issues at all with stability.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The scalability of Amazon Linux for my needs is good; it is the same as any Linux distribution.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We previously used Ubuntu and kops to deploy Kubernetes clusters, but we switched when Amazon provided the EKS service and AMIs with Amazon Linux that connects to EKS.
Before choosing Amazon Linux, we worked on Ubuntu.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Amazon Linux is free, so we are not purchasing Amazon Linux, but we use AMIs that are published on the Marketplace.
I do not have experience with the pricing of Amazon Linux.
What other advice do I have?
My advice to others looking into using Amazon Linux is to use it if you need it.
I would not add more about the needed improvements, perhaps around package availability or anything else that comes to mind.
My overall review rating for Amazon Linux is 7.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Improved service reliability and performance have supported critical workloads but need more feedback loops
What is our primary use case?
A major use case for Amazon Linux is that it powers both web servers and application servers. As a payment company, we majorly use Amazon Linux to deploy our services. Being able to ship those services to our customers means that the performance of the service is critical to our customers, which speaks to service reliability. Service reliability has been one key thing that Amazon Linux has been able to deliver to us as an organization.
What is most valuable?
From the performance perspective, our use case is basically the deployment of services, and using Amazon Linux as the baseline OS has really helped us from the performance perspective compared to our experience with other baseline operating systems we have used in the past.
The boot time and resource usage have improved with Amazon Linux compared to other baseline operating systems we have used in the past. Resource usage is more efficient with Amazon Linux. Faster boot time and efficient resource usage make Amazon Linux perform better for us.
Being able to ship services to our customers efficiently and ensuring service reliability is a key benefit delivered by Amazon Linux.
What needs improvement?
I believe customer feedback and engagement will help improve the product. From my own standpoint for now, nothing comes to mind. We recently moved to Amazon Linux, but it has been efficient for us. Nothing comes to mind at this time.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Amazon Linux for a few years now and it is currently being used at my workplace. We have a couple of services that are being deployed on Amazon Linux.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Amazon Linux is stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
From the scalability perspective, Amazon Linux has been efficient for us. It has been able to handle the traffic load for us.
How are customer service and support?
Customer support generally for AWS has been great, and we have not seen a reason to have any situation with the customer support. On the grand scheme of things, the customer support has been awesome.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Negative
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We evaluated and deployed some services on Ubuntu and some other Linux distributions.
How was the initial setup?
Because we set up Amazon Linux on AWS, which I believe is proprietary to the AWS organization, the experience was efficient.
What was our ROI?
We have seen a return on investments with that, and we were able as an organization to save something around $8,000 per month. That was really helpful.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The pricing is not bad, especially with the Graviton instances, the ARM Graviton instances, which has also really helped us in our organization to basically drop our cloud cost.
What other advice do I have?
It has been a great experience with Amazon Linux for us as an organization. My overall review rating for Amazon Linux is 7 out of 10.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Hybrid Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Rich ecosystem has supported AI development and secure migrations but still needs clearer examples
What is our primary use case?
I have experience with the product. AWS Lambda functions and the S3 bucket are the Amazon products I deal with mostly.
What is most valuable?
I am generally satisfied with Amazon Linux; I appreciate the EC2 instances as well.
The ecosystem of software packages in Amazon Linux has helped us keep up to date with the artificial intelligence trend, where people are using ChatGPT to code, and they are also using Amazon Developer Q to program applications much faster, and then also to meet requirements with the Google Play Store and Apple Store.
The rich documentation of Amazon Linux is beneficial for my migration processes; it is very helpful.
Amazon Linux's security updates have been helpful in general because I have had to be more specific in using the Identity Access Management (IAM) service so that we can have role-based permissions in preference to just keeping it open.
What needs improvement?
Amazon Linux can be improved by having the documentation contain more examples of use cases.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been working with Amazon Linux for at least five years.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup was very friendly for me; it was very friendly on Mac. I did not have any severe challenges installing or updating.
What other advice do I have?
I do not use the optimized kernel in Amazon Linux.
I tried a little bit with Alexa services, but considering, it has been a while since I updated the integrated AWS CLI feature in Amazon Linux.
I find the pricing friendly because it is per hour; I use the pay-as-you-go option so that if the application does not have a lot of users, it is cheap. However, when there are many users, the users then pay for the expenses of the application.
There is a need for features including integration with other marketplaces; when you build, launch once, and deploy everywhere, it would be easy to just deploy once if there was that integration. That would be a nice feature to have.
I would recommend Amazon Linux to others. I give this review a rating of 7.
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Good, but still lacks some stuff
I have been using this AMI in PCI DSS env for quite some time, however out of the box it doesn't pass Amazon Inspector findings - still needs quite a bit of tuning to deal with findings. Things like sshd protocol version is not set, sshd logging, password lockout policy, etc.
I was not able to find CHANGELOG - basically its some "black box".
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